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Making it work: Studio photography in small spaces

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I’d love to have access to a massive studio space with all of the latest amenities. Who wouldn’t?

But in many cases, a living room is all you need to get the dynamic shot you’re looking for. Nearly all of my favorite studio shots were done with my Oliphant backdrops in a 10′ x 15′ room.

You might be wondering, “What if my walls are red? What if I have low ceilings? What if my carpet is burgundy?” Don’t stress — there are simple ways around all of these problems, and I’m here to walk you through them.

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Five easy ways to use V-Flats in the studio

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V- Flats, screens, flags, boards, whatever you want to call them. They can be really inexpensive but have a huge value in portrait photography in the studio.

I bought these polystyrene sheets from a local DIY shop costing around £40 for the pair. I used shelving brackets on the base to help give some level of sturdiness and make sure they are free standing. Not the best solution for the base, but, in two years they’ve never fallen, never broken and have worked a treat.

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Use these eight warm-up poses to kick off your next portrait session

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Everybody handles their portrait sessions differently. Some just jump right into it while others take a little time to warm up. Typically, I’m of the latter variety, especially as most of my subjects aren’t models who are used to being in front of the camera. They’re regular people, they need to get comfortable, and I want to see how their face and body react to the light.

And that’s what this video from Michael Zelbel at Good Light is all about. These are 8 warm-up poses he goes through with his subjects to get them comfortable in front of the camera, see how the pose affects their body, and how it responds to the light.

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Elinchrom launches the ELB 500 TTL – Their most powerful portable TTL strobe ever

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TTL seems to have become all the rage for big strobes the last few years. There are now TTL strobe options from Godox, Profoto and even Cactus, amongst others. Now Elinchrom up their game with the new ELB 500 TTL; A 500Ws pack & head system offering TTL, High Speed Sync all the way up to 1/8000sec, and 400 full power flashes on a single charge for use both on location and in the studio.

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How colour contamination may be ruining your photographs and how to fix it

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Whether you’re aware of the correct terminology or not, you have likely experienced this colour contamination happening in your photographs already.

Put simply, colour contamination is when one colour is affected by the presence of another colour in close proximity. So for example, if you’re photographing two friends side by side, one of them is wearing a white t-shirt and the other one is wearing a red t-shirt, the white t-shirt will likely take on a pinkish tone due to the fact that it’s receiving bounced light from the red t-shirt close by.

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Experiments shooting studio portraits with a wide angle lens

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Normally, in portrait photography, using wide-angle lenses is not a common choice for most photographers. Each focal length has its own characteristics, wider lenses are known by their unflattering distortion, seen mainly at the edge of a photograph. Landscape and architectural photographers are more used to it because their need of getting more information inside the frame, but even these scenarios it is not an easy trick, it does present challenges inherent of wide-angle lenses.

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The beginner’s guide to using grids with softboxes

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Every day I see people posting in Facebook groups asking about softboxes and whether or not they should buy one with a grid. Personally, I always advise going for one that comes with a grid. Even if you don’t know why you might need it yet, if you get one without and then find out that you need one, it can often be impossible to source just the right size and shape.

But what exactly do grids do? And do you really need one? That’s what photographer David Bergman looks at in this two-minute video. He goes over what grids are for and when you might choose to use one. I have grids for all of my softboxes and octaboxes. I don’t always use them, but when I do need them, they’re absolutely invaluable.

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Use lighting gels to get a pastel light wrap around your subject

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Good news! This is actually a relatively easy JHP lighting setup to play with and it produces some pretty great looking results too. It’s easy to set up as you only need a couple of softboxes and this can be put together and shot in a very small space indeed; no studio required. Plus it produces some great looking results because it uses coloured light. Now I know I may sound biased on that but hear me out as we go through the setup and it should start to make more sense as to why this looks extra cool with coloured gels compared to without.

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See every Godox X system studio strobe in this side-by-side comparison

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People make a big deal about the AD600 (now AD600 Pro) and AD200 strobes when it comes to Godox. They offer a lot of power in a nice easily portable package. But they offer so many more strobes than just these two. While those mentioned above, along with the AD360II are fantastic for shooters looking to get light on location, there are quite a few photographers who never take their lights out of the studio.

And that’s where this handy video from Rob Hall comes in. It covers and compares the entire range of mains-powered Godox studio strobes compatible with the X1T, XT32 and XPro triggers. It’s a pretty extensive list of lights covering a range of requirements, and those on 220-240v power even see some flash duration perks that 110-120v countries do not.

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This photographer turns his models into iconic people, and resemblance is stunning

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For the past two years, French photographer Etienne Clotis has worked on a project named ICONIC. This interesting series of photos depicts the iconic people: musicians, painters, actors, fashion designers and many others who marked their era. With great fashion designer and make-up artist, Etienne turns his models into these people, and the resemblance is remarkable.

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